THE NEW TOWNS

tions for recreation and mutual aid. New Towns, in fact, are as much a test
of our capacity for community building as they are of physical planning.
And though there are some disadvantages—the fact that most of the residents
are newcomers without roots, the distractions of home and garden making,
the problem of baby-sitting where there is a high proportion of young
families—there are also many assets. One is that there is a continual infusion
of fresh material, of people with youth and energy, whose latent talents and
enthusiasm have been brought out by the challenge of a new environment.
Secondly, the absence or comparative scarcity of ‘passive’ amenities, such
as cinemas, public houses, dance halls, football stadiums, dog tracks, means
that ‘creative’ and amateur interests are stimulated. Thirdly, voluntary
organisations provide the most useful means, outside the factory and the
local shops, of making new friends, of finding substitutes for the neighbours
and relatives left behind in the old home district. Fourthly, the mere
mechanics of life in a new community demand some form of contact between
the residents and the Corporation, which for most tenants, at least in the
first years of residence, plays a larger or more visible part of their life than
the local or county council. All kinds of problems have to be settled, from
responsibility for internal decoration, to landscaping, rents, garden regulations,
 and the use of community centres, and since the Corporation is not
responsible to its residents by election, neighbourhood or community associations
 provide a channel for consultation.

The Corporations Help

[n such matters the Corporations have worked largely by trial and error,
and their practices differ, For the most part they have taken considerable
rouble to answer grievances, even where they have been unable to meet
them, and to explain to_each newcomer what the plan for his town is and
how it will affect him. Compared with many public bodies, the Development
Corporations have been far more skilful and considerate in their publi
relations; far from trying to restrict the scope of volunfary organisations,
they have done a great deal to promote and encourage them. In some cases,
the public relations officer has found, in addition to his duty of publicising
his Corporation’s work nationally, and dealing with the stream of professional
and foreign visitors who descend upon him, that he has become organiserat-large
 for the new community, running everything from fetes and carnivals
to neighbourhood news-sheets.
The social balance,” and the provision of the material facilities for
community organisation are discussed below. For the moment it is only
necessary to note the astonishing yitality which New Town residents arg
showing, Take, for instance, Crawley. By last December, in a town that now
has twenty-four thousand inhabitants, there were more than two hundred and
fifty associations, clubs and parties, and forty-five of these had been started
within the previous year. Apart from trade unions, political. party branches,
religious groups, sports clubs, tenants’ associations and cultural groups, there
were bodies catering for bell ringers, freemasons, old time dancers, Buffaloes,
Druids and cage-bird fanciers. Hemel Hempstead issues every newcomer